Jerzy Ficowski, one of the most intriguing literary figures in post-war Poland, passed away last week in Warsaw aged 82.
Ficowski is known in the West largely through his research into the legacy of Bruno Schulz, the Polish/Jewish writer who has been labeled 'the Polish Kafka.' However, in Poland, Ficowski was also a respected poet and essayist in his own right.
Jerzy Ficowski was born in Warsaw in 1924. As a young man he fought in the doomed uprising against the Nazi occupation, a conflict that saw the death of over 200,000 civilians and the destruction of the Polish capital.
The subsequent subjection of Poland to the status of a Polish satellite exposed Ficowski to yet more danger. As a veteran of the Polish resistance, he was very much a bete noire in the eyes of the new authorities. To avoid detection, Ficowski lived for a considerable time amongst one of the surviving Polish Gypsy colonies. In later life he became one of Poland's leading specialists on gypsy culture, completing several books on the subject.
Much of Ficowski's life was devoted to researching the life of Bruno Schulz, whose magical short stories are now drawing growing acclaim in the West. Schulz himself met a tragic end - he was gunned down on the street by a German soldier during the height of the war.
Besides his seminal biography of Schulz,'Regions of the Great Heresy', a volume of Ficowski's own short stories has been translated into English by the Canadian writer Soren Gauger. Jerzy Ficowski will be laid to rest on Wednesday in the military section of Warsaw's historic Powazki cemetery.
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